The Student Leader Retreat (SLR) is an annual program that strives to create a space where Georgia Tech students can practice their leadership skills by collaborating with other organizations and administrators to develop relationships to better serve their constituents. Those skills and the synergy created among the participants will be utilized to focus on collaborative solutions to campus issues that impact the campus culture.
For nearly 15 years, the Student Leader Retreat has provided a forum for student leaders, staff, and faculty to engage in meaningful dialogue around campus issues and initiatives. These issues and initiatives are brainstormed and problem-solved by the student leaders. Staff and faculty provide resources and support as they move through this process of innovation.
Previous Topics
2021
The 2021 Student Leader Retreat took place virtually. As a part of the ENGAGE2021 event the SLR included speakers and participants from:
- Recent alumni,
- Current graduate and undergraduate students
- SGA representatives
- Staff from the Center for Student Engagement
2020
In 2020, the Center for Student Engagement will be collaborating with Georgia Tech Strategic Consulting to explore the basic concepts of organizational strategic planning with student leaders and engage them in providing input to Georgia Tech’s new strategic plan, which is currently under development. Students will gain a basic understanding of organizational visioning and goal setting while contributing their ideas through facilitated activities. The goal will be to create a space for student organization leaders to work together to develop goals, objectives, and measures for two to three strategic themes from the new plan. The outputs from this session will be provided to the strategic plan working groups who are assigned to the relevant theme areas, for them to consider as they focus on the goal-setting phase in the spring.
2019
In 2019, the Student Leader Retreat worked in cooperation with leadership facilitator Michael Miller to explore issues and practices for which student leaders at Tech continually request support and training. The first day of the retreat will include time to get acquainted with the participants. This retreat will focus on personal leadership development skill-building as well as strategies for taking responsibility for your student organization's long-term, sustainability, and growth. Our goal is to work together to explore your own leadership path and the way you may be more effectively engaging passionately with your student organization. The retreat will explore questions like: How can I build strategies to lead sustainable change for my student origination? How may I better manage issues of membership engagement? How can I make my organization more open environment for new members?
2018
In 2018, Student Engagement and the Division of Student Life engaged LeaderShape's Catalyst Program to deliver a day-long program to explore the question "Who are you as a student leader?"; students engaged in conversations on self-development and taking control of their own personal leadership story. Bringing together 40 students from Tech's 500+ registered student organizations, the retreat began with an evening of exploring personal strengths and developing skills to strategize and manage strengths within student leader teams.
2017
In 2017, the Student Leader Retreat engaged with the “I Feel Safe When…” campaign. The first day of the retreat included short presentations from workgroups, initiatives, and active taskforces that are currently addressing campus issues (e.g.; Black Student Experience Taskforce, End Suicide Together campaign, Greek Affairs Taskforce, and Health & Wellbeing). Our goal was to work together to create informed and collaborative solutions that addressed student organization impact around the topics emerging from the ‘I Feel Safe When…” campaign.
2016
In 2016, the Student Leader Retreat focused on strategies to better develop student organization leaders. Student participants were provided a copy of Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet to read prior to the retreat. Coaches from the Leading Edge and Organization Coaching Programs facilitated retreat elements. The goal defined was to work together in order to create collaborative solutions that address student organization leadership support at Georgia Tech.
2015
In 2015 the Student Leader Retreat focused on the work of the Georgia Tech Mental Health Task Force. The goal was to create a space for Student Organization Leaders to work together in order to create collaborative solutions that address this issue on campus. The retreat took place on January 24-25, 2015.